


the breakup club

by sujiverse



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F, alternatively titled: unnie line battles singlehood, minimal sexual content but its there, otp: loona men x misery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2020-10-27 17:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20763911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sujiverse/pseuds/sujiverse
Summary: “Jiwoo, you have got to hear this. I have a magnificent plan on how I’m going to get my life in order.”“What?” Sooyoung brandished her not-so-secret plan in Jiwoo’s face. Jiwoo still looked confused. “Sooyoung, this just has very poorly drawn ladies sitting around a round table. And on the side, you wrote ‘no more sad’.”“I’m going to start a club. I’m going to stop being sad. You’re joining."





	1. get better day by day

**Author's Note:**

> gratefully inspired by mamamoo's wind flower

The idea had struck her out of the blue one day.

While sipping on her hangover coffee, Sooyoung had a caffeine-induced epiphany. She’d immediately taken out a pen, scribbled out her grand plan, and immortalised it in ballpoint ink on one of her crumpled receipts. She had taken one look at the masterpiece in her hand, grinned freakishly wide, felt the world spin, and blacked out by the foot of her bed.

Turns out, she was still intoxicated from the night before. 

Jiwoo, the one to find her holding onto that worn out piece of paper for her dear life, had also woken her up in a frenzy, thinking she was dead. She was not dead. She’d never felt more alive. 

“Jiwoo, you have got to hear this. I have a magnificent plan on how I’m going to get my life in order.”

“What?” Sooyoung brandished her not-so-secret plan in Jiwoo’s face. “Tai Cheong Bakery? You bought twenty-five egg tarts?!”

“Oops. Wrong side.”

She flipped the paper around. Jiwoo still looked confused. “Sooyoung, this just has very poorly drawn ladies sitting around a round table. And on the side, you wrote ‘no more sad’.”

“I’m going to start a club. I’m going to stop being sad. You’re joining.”

“Wha- Do I not get a choice in this?”

Sooyoung ignored her, feeling another epiphany emerging from the depths of her hyperactive mind. “Oh my god, shut up. Wait. I’m starting something like… like The Breakfast Club. Bunch of misfits in a group. We’ll just be a club of people experiencing breakups. We’ll be crying and moping and drinking anyway, might as well have some others to do that shit with, right? I’m a fucking genius.”

“Slow the fuck down, a breakup club? Who’s gonna want to be in a club that’s just… just… sad?”

“Can’t you read? That clearly says ‘no more sad’, Jiwoo.”

Jiwoo crossed her arms. She did fit the bill to be a member, and it didn’t seem too terrible an idea to have someone else look after Sooyoung while she drank for a change, but her best friend was also being annoyingly smug about this and completely unapologetic about the night before. “This isn’t the best way to be broadcasting that you’re miserable and in need of new friends.”

“You’re going through a breakup yourself! You’re also miserable and in need of new friends!”

Jiwoo opened her mouth, but couldn’t find it in herself to refute Sooyoung. She wasn’t wrong. 

Groaning, Jiwoo shoved Sooyoung against the nearest wall. Hearing her manic laugh, Jiwoo knew she had no way to get out of this. Sooyoung had lost her marbles, and in being her friend, Jiwoo had also, in some way, lost.

“So, how does the title of vice president sound for you?”

* * *

The “first club meeting” before the first ever club meeting wasn’t actually planned for failure.

“Who else is coming?” Jiwoo asked in greeting, seating herself opposite Sooyoung. The booth looked big enough for six, and Sooyoung had chosen one of the more presentable dinner spots, supposedly to make a good first impression. 

And then, out-of-pocket as Sooyoung always is, she replied with, “Hm? Oh it’s just me and you today.” 

If anything, the booth felt even emptier now. It could probably fit eight, actually. 

Jiwoo just stared at Sooyoung, who was munching on her broccoli nonchalantly. She doesn’t know why she expected her friend to be seeking a good first impression since she hadn’t even had the etiquette to wait for her club to arrive before ordering her food. 

Incredulously, she asked, “You don’t see a problem with that?”

“What?” 

“Sooyoung. You don’t need a club to ‘cry, mope and drink together’ if it’s just me and you. That’s just called a friendship.”

Sooyoung rolled her eyes. “It’s going to take some time for the club to take off anyway. We need people who are conveniently going through breakups, speak Korean, and aren’t our exes! That dramatically shrinks the pool down to… you and I. For now.”

“That’s stupid. I thought you had more people in mind.”

“Honey,” Sooyoung scoffed, “you know I’m not much of a planner. That’s why I got broken up with!”

Jiwoo softened at that. Maybe it was the way Sooyoung’s dark eye circles seemed more prominent that day. “Shut up.” As she struggled to come up with something else to say, Sooyoung continued eating. “It’s so hard to reply to that!”

“I’m not expecting you to,” Sooyoung shrugged.

“Ugh. You’re so annoying.” Jiwoo turned her attention to the menu in her hand, feeling irritable at the fact that she had rushed off from a group project meeting to be eating with Sooyoung.

And that’s when a girl from the booth behind theirs had popped her head across the threshold and enthusiastically introduced herself as “Jo Haseul, fellow Korean exchange student, Applied Music major, I’m sorry I couldn’t help but overhear, but I think I know two people who are perfect for your club.”

Jiwoo had never known a saviour, until that very moment. 

* * *

Dealing with Haseul has allowed Jungeun to learn a thing or two about being friends with someone who has broken up with their significant other. 

The first of which is to never ever let them text their ex while drunk. Haseul can be very convincing when she slurs out, “I’m not drunk!”, but if she’s two beers in and already slobbering through a rant about how she should have treated her ex better, then it’s better to put her phone away. 

The second lesson she learned when Haseul came crying to her, grieving, screaming, and venting, all at once. She finds out that sometimes all these broken hearts are looking for is to let it all out. A shoulder to cry on - that Jungeun can valiantly and proudly be, no thanks to her years as a swimmer, and her innate ability to know when to shut up. 

The third and most important one of all, is to never act like she knew what was best for them. When Haseul ran to her, all excited that she was now a proud member of the University of Hong Kong’s Salsa Club, Jungeun had nodded and smiled, told her she was proud of her for trying to get better on her own accord. That lasted a week, apparently, because “dancing reminded her too much of Vivi” and she was “only in it for the free food anyway”. Bottom line, don’t get too involved in Haseul’s healing process. It might have hurt her more if Jungeun told her from the start that it was going to be a waste of her time.

Haseul being the one who inadvertently taught Jungeun all those lessons, however, doesn’t imply that she had learnt anything herself. 

“Come on, please,” Haseul crossed every possible line, and into Jungeun’s personal space. Haseul has no concept of what that is. “It’s not going to be fun if you’re not coming with me.”

Jungeun sighed, realising that Haseul had distracted her from copying the last string of words that left her professor’s mouth. “No, I don’t want to. I’m sad. I just want to sit in my bed, rewatch the worst episodes of Glee and not socialise. Let me go.” Haseul only pouted more aggressively, and clung onto her harder. She stared decisively into her friend’s eyes. “Let me go. I’m not joining some stupid club. Not tonight.”

“But you’re not allowed to be sad! It’s a club that almost all the Korean exchange students are in. It’s somewhere we can go to make friends. It’s been four months here and still! Still! We only have each other.”

“Okay, go make your new friends then! You don’t need me there.”

Haseul leaned her head onto her shoulder now. “Jungeun, please, I promise you it’ll be fun, okay? I’m not letting you mope alone. You never let me mope alone. I have to do the same for you.”

“That wasn’t by choice, you always came crying to me.” Haseul’s bottom lip trembled. She was such a good actress that Jungeun felt slight remorse from that. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way... Fine. Take me to this stupid club meeting. If I don’t enjoy it, you’re buying me that tub of ice cream and letting me cry on your shoulder. Also I get to choose which season of Glee we’re watching.”

Haseul grinned, fake tears gleaming under the white light of the lecture hall. “Deal.”

* * *

The first real club meeting happens to be much less of a failure than the “first” one.

A single tungsten lightbulb dimly illuminated the room. Three girls sat on one side of a long desk, facing the whiteboard. They faced their club president, who was wearing mismatched foundation, bags under her eyes, and a very rugged-looking denim jacket. She looked like a tough week personified. 

Jungeun, one of the three seated around the table, still didn’t know what the hell Haseul brought her there for. She’d been nothing but mysterious and cryptic, making Jungeun think that if she had been told what it was about, she wouldn’t even be here. In a way it only made Jungeun even more curious, so, kudos to Haseul for having seen through her or whatever.

“We’re all here today because we’re experiencing… problems. Problems mostly out of our control. Problems that have turned our lives upside down and flipped them inside out, leaving us empty and…”

“You brought me here for an AA meeting?!” Jungeun hissed, as Ha Sooyoung, club founder and president apparently, droned on with her eyes dreamily tilted towards the mouldy ceiling of the unused music room. “I don’t drink that much!”

“This isn’t an AA meeting! Look, there’s beer right there.” Haseul pointed to the empty bottles in the corner beside Sooyoung’s haphazardly strewn bag and belongings. Well, that explained a whole lot. 

“Welcome, one and all, to the fi-”

_ Screech.  _ The chair made a shrill noise as Jiwoo dragged it forward along the floor without lifting her butt off it. “Sorry,” she hurriedly muttered out, embarrassed, and not meeting any of the eyes that were on her, the most fiery of which belonged to Sooyoung, whose limelight was so rudely stolen under her nose. She tapped the whiteboard impatiently, regaining the attention of the three ladies sitting on the other side of the square desk - like the knights of the round table, but sapphic! She had tried and failed to find a room that had both a whiteboard and a round table, trying to stay true to her crazed mind’s creation. 

“As I was saying. Welcome, one and all, to the first session of,” Sooyoung clapped twice, letting her hands hang high in the air for effect, “ _ ...The Breakup Club _ .”

There it was. Jungeun laughed to herself mirthlessly, almost devilishly. Oh, Haseul’s in a whole lot of trouble for this. As if sensing that Jungeun was already calculating the twenty thousand ways she would wring her dry and hang her up on a laundry line, Haseul moved her chair a little to the right and away from her. If there was anything Jungeun hated more than her ex-boyfriend, it was expressing her feelings, or worse, her grievances. 

“So! Let’s all introduce ourselves and explain our reasons for being here. I’m Ha Sooyoung, business major, met the love of my life two years ago and thought I was finally ready for commitment. Found out a month ago that I was not, in fact, ready to settle down. Alcohol is the new love of my life. Now… Haseul?”

Haseul, eager to have the spotlight, went into a mini monologue about how excited she was to have two new people to exchange advice with. “Oh, and I major in Applied Music! But all of you knew that already. What else did I miss… Ah, my ex-girlfriend broke up with me because she could never see herself leaving Hong Kong. And I’m not one to stray far from home, so… we’re on a break until we find something that works for the both of us. I haven’t stopped being sad about this and it’s been three weeks. But for now, I’m so happy I found you guys!”

Jungeun squirmed in her seat as the spotlight passed over her and onto the girl to her left.

“Uh, Kim Jiwoo. Someone back home caught my ex sleeping around. I confronted him about it and got dumped, and now I’m here. Oh, and I study film!” Jiwoo smiled brightly, faltering only when she met the gaze of the pretty stranger sitting next to her. “Um, and you?”

“Oh,” Jungeun scratched the back of her neck. “Kim Jungeun, Aerospace Engineering.” 

The trio glanced expectantly at her, expecting there to be more to her story. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Jiwoo told her, “this is a safe space! Or you could just tell us when you’re ready.”

Jungeun smiled at her kindness. Her eyes drifted and met Haseul’s encouraging ones. Maybe this could be as good for her as Haseul desperately wanted it to be.

“I had a boyfriend but we, uh, just drifted… because of the distance, I guess.” 

“That happens,” Jiwoo whispered to her. “Boyfriends suck.”

“Yeah,” Jungeun laughed a little at that, “they do. But it’s so inconvenient to not have one either.”

Jiwoo gasped, “I feel that! That is so true. Now I have to-”

“Ahem!” Sooyoung forcefully brought the three pairs of eyes back on her. “Great! Now that I have your full attention, some ground rules.”

Sooyoung turned a little too quickly to write on the whiteboard. Stumbling, she caught herself by the ledge of the whiteboard, getting marker dust all over her hands. 

“i’m alright!” She announced. Haseul, who had stood up in a panic, sat back down. 

Popping open the marker and letting the cap fall onto the floor with an indifferent “oops”, Sooyoung finally started scribbling. Her handwriting was atrocious. 

“She’s drunk,” Jungeun muttered. 

Without looking, Haseul pinched her thigh from underneath the table. She brought a finger to her lips, glaring at Jungeun. Jungeun rolled her eyes.

Bearing witness to the banter, Jiwoo let out a soft giggle that only Jungeun noticed. Embarrassed, Jungeun turned back, focusing her energy back onto their inebriated club president.

Sooyoung, done with writing on the whiteboard, finally faced her club again.

“Rule number one of The Breakup Club: You do not talk about The Breakup Club. Rule number two of The Breakup Club-”

“You do not talk about-” 

“You do not tell Jinsoul- Will you let me finish?”

Jiwoo nodded meekly. Sooyoung continued, “You don’t tell Jung Jinsoul, third year linguistics student, about The Breakup Club. And rule three: We will not - no, no, we will  _ never _ \- get back together with our exes. Three simple rules. Let’s drink to that, aye?”

Nobody caught the way Haseul flinched at the last rule. Surely she and Vivi were exempted from that, right? They were just… on a break.

Sooyoung raised her own bottle, half-filled with beer that had already gone flat. None of the three have drinks. She cleared her throat, having forgotten that. 

“Nevermind. Anyways, now that that’s out the way, let’s plan some fun activities! I heard the swimming club swims twice a week in a nearby lake. We can do that sometimes.”

Jiwoo whined, “The water’s going to be so cold! It’s almost fall.”

“Okay… Hiking? Perfect weather for hiking.”

“I am deathly, and I mean  _ deathly _ afraid of birds. And heights.” Haseul barely flinched under Sooyoung’s intense stare. She will not go hiking.

Sooyoung sighed. “Fine. Any other ideas that may not include outdoor activities?”

“Group therapy?” Jiwoo suggested. She’s met with a chorus of boos.

“You know what we need? The opposite of that. We should come up with an introduction! Like you know, hana, dul, set.. let’s break UP! Annyeonghaseyo we are The Break-”

“Any other suggestions to how we can liven this club up?” Sooyoung cut Haseul off, thankfully. 

“Uh, group karaoke? We could sing if we wanted to. Dance.” Jungeun shrugged. ”Drink.”

Sooyoung pointed a decisive finger in Jungeun’s face. “Good idea,” she deadpanned with a solemn nod, writing it down on the empty whiteboard. “The first real contribution for the day.  _ Thank you,  _ Jungeun.”

“You’re… welcome?” Jungeun turned to the hands in her lap. “Though I’m not sure if we should be encouraging alcohol abu-”

“Rule number four! Club president is allowed to turn up tipsy.”

* * *

“So how was that?”

“Not half bad.”

“Come on, Jungeun, you liked it. Say you liked it.”

Jungeun groaned. 

“You liked it! You can’t admit that I was right, so it means that you liked it.”

The girl turned with a smile plastered on a face, choosing to hide it from Haseul. She unlocked the door to her room with her back to her friend. “Whatever you say, Haseul.”

“Goodnight, Jungie! I was right!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

* * *

The second club meeting goes about as similarly as the first. 

Chaotic. A little awkward. Subtle sexual undertones. A pinch of existential dread.

“Hey! Haseul! Which room are you guys in?” Jungeun yelled into her phone, hearing the background noise grow louder. Is that Haseul singing? 

“HEY!” Someone that isn’t Haseul yells back. There’s some shuffling, and the singing gets muffled. “Hey! Are you outside?” 

“Yeah! Right at the door.”

“I’ll come get you.”

While waiting, Jungeun busied herself with dusting rain droplets off her sleeve. The drizzle that stood between her final class of the day and the karaoke bar was annoying, more than anything else, and she’d decided that she could forgo an umbrella. 

Her knight in shining armour arrived with a tambourine in one hand, and funky sunglasses in the shape of middle fingers perched on her head. “Sorry,” Jiwoo mentioned sheepily, “Haseul wouldn’t let me leave without this in my hand.”

Jungeun laughed. “And the sunglasses?”

“Stylistic choice.” Jungeun laughed again. “How was your class?”

“It was… class.”

“That’s very illuminating, Jungeun. Though I get what you mean, class is most often, class. It’s usually… class. Sometimes it feels like it wouldn’t be very class-like that day, but you go in and it’s just…”

“Class,” they say together.

“Exactly.”

Jungeun laughed yet again. Wouldn’t be the last time she did that. “How long have you guys been singing for?” 

She should know this. Her class ended at 8. She reached wherever she was fifteen minutes later. They decided to meet here at 7. So an hour and fifteen minutes. But somehow, it felt weird for her that Jiwoo was the only one who made an effort in the conversation. So here, an effort made. Jiwoo answered her perfectly, and the walk back up the four flights of stairs continued to be a silent one.

The next time Jiwoo turned back again, it’s with the warning on the tip of her tongue and the door to their club meeting right in front of her. She seemed serious when she asked, “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

“Um,” Jungeun lost any and all train of thought trying to figure out what that meant. “Bad news?”

“Bad news, okay. They’re both very good at singing, and it’s killing them to wait between songs. It’s a warzone in there with them singing over each other. Also they bought a free flow drink package. You okay?”

“Trying to be,” Jungeun placed a hand over her lips to cover a dramatic gasp. Jiwoo quietly put the tambourine in her hand in faux concern. Jungeun tried to keep her voice low when she asked, “And the good news?”

Jiwoo pushed open the door to the tiny room, just as Sooyoung was attempting to either break the glass window with just her voice, or doing her worst impression of Mariah Carey.

“The mics are working perfectly.”

Nothing could have prepared Jungeun for the tsunami of noise she’d walked into. Haseul greeted her with beer breath and the ending verse to “All I Want For Christmas Is You”, while Sooyoung patted her on the back while attempting yet another whistle note. Jiwoo took a seat next to her, but only after placing a pair of sunglasses over her eyes. It was the same one Jiwoo had over hers.

They were just getting started.

By the end of the night, a consensus is reached. The second club meeting went infinitely better than the first.

* * *

“You said you were bringing a special guest today,” Jungeun gestured to the room. “Where’s the guest?”

Their third meeting had been nothing short of underwhelming up to that point. They were just exchanging small talk, asking about each other’s courses and such. Sooyoung never brought up that guest she was so insistent they all had to meet.

“You’ve already met it.”

“The guest? It’s an ‘it’?” Haseul jumped from her seat, looking for whatever Sooyoung might have brought. “Please don’t be a bird, please don’t be a bird…”

Annoyed that her efforts had been wasted, Sooyoung finally pointed out the new addition to the wall. Where a clock used to hang, there now stood a frame.

“Is that?” Jiwoo squinted. It was. The Tai Cheong Bakery receipt, framed and put on display. Jiwoo hid her eyes behind her hand, nodding quickly when Jungeun asked her if she knew what in the world that was.

“More ground rules! We will officially adopt ‘NO MORE SAD’ as our official tagline. Why? Because I created this club to stop feeling sad all the time. We’re here to help each other get better. Like a personal cheerleading club. The Breakup Club. Wonderful. And the last rule, the mother of all rules: we will all take turns to plan club activities. Starting with our vice president.”

Jiwoo snapped out of her reverie from Sooyoung’s onslaught of words, finally processing them.

“Oh come on!”

* * *

Movie night turned unexpectedly passionate with Jiwoo’s impeccable taste in movie-night-friendly movies. You know, film major and everything.

Sooyoung started with, “I’m telling you, the totem clearly shakes. Dom is in reality now. His kids are real! I swear they looked different from the dream kids!” 

To which Jungeun argued back, “But what if this reality was constructed to model after his reality? What if he constructed this reality that we know of, in a dream?”

“That can’t be, there’s no way this dream could have lasted that long!” 

“You never know. Jungeun's right. Didn’t you see it at the beginning? Saito was like a million years old. He could have been there for 90 dream years, or something. So could Dom,” Jiwoo stated, while she thoughtfully stroked her chin. 

“Fuuuuuuucccck,” came Sooyoung’s final response.

“What were we watching again?”

Three voices answered Haseul at the same time. “Inception.”

It was too good a movie, almost. The next night, they put on ‘The Room’, just to be fair.

* * *

Haseul’s week-long effort to bring them "the best adventure of their lives" culminated in an amazing race sort of thing in their sixth club meeting. 

When she told them she had a lot in store for them, they didn’t expect a full day race All over the country. 

Where did Haseul find the time to leave them all messages under their doors, which led them to Tsim Sha Tsui Station, at which they had to obtain three MTR cards from the station manager, and task him with handing them an envelope that contained the details of the next clue? The next clue, which was left in the hands of a janitor at Ngong Ping Village, who told them to ride in the cable car on which they had to complete even more tasks on, and… you get the idea. 

“Haseul is fucking terrifying!” Sooyoung exclaimed, three sudoku puzzles done all in the span of ten minutes. “She’s a monster. Never letting her have full reign over my Saturday like that ever again.”

While Sooyoung could finally relax to enjoy the great bird’s eye view of the country, Jiwoo struggled to complete her allocated crossword. “What’s… what’s the 57th element on the periodic table?”

“Try lanthanum,” Jungeun, already given up on her tasks (she reckoned she could bully Haseul into letting her win anyway), suggested. It was right, but Jiwoo was so focused that she’d completely forgotten to thank Jungeun for that. It didn’t help that her phone vibrating in her pocket kept bringing her in and out of the zone.

With a loud sigh, Jiwoo finally whipped out her phone. Fed up with all the messages streaming in from Surok, Jiwoo deleted her ex’s number, and blocked him without second thought. “What the fuck is the name of the plastic tip of shoelaces?”

“Aglet, A-G-L-E-T,” Sooyoung replied. “Who was that on your phone?”

“Surok.” The name of her ex made Jungeun perk up. She watched Sooyoung’s eyebrows furrow in concern.

“Surok. Why was he looking for you?” 

“I don’t know. Probably wants to get back together. I blocked him. Someone who doesn’t eat any meat but fish? Is that a pescatarian?”

“Yes. You blocked Surok’s number.” Sooyoung smiled.

“I did.” 

“Surok’s number. Gone from your phone. And the chat?”

“Deleted.”

“You blocked Surok,” Jungeun said aloud.

“I did, why do you keep-” The realisation dawned upon her. Finally. Jiwoo looked up to see two very proud pair of eyes looking at her. “Oh. I blocked him. Oh my god, I blocked him!”

She jumped into their arms so hard, the cable car shook a little. Inspired, Jungeun took out her own phone, and deleted her ex’s number as well. And Haseul, who was waiting for them on the platform with a giant grin and a warm hug for them both, couldn’t even be bothered to check their answers. 

* * *

“I’m stuck,” Jungeun pouted, resting her chin on the table top. Absentmindedly, she drew over her the papers strewn over her desk. Her worksheets were the last of her worries right now.

“Hm?” Jiwoo pulled out her earpieces, seeing that Jungeun had something to say. She pushed her laptop aside, making sure to give her fullest attention.

“I’m out of ideas for what we should do. For the next club meeting.”

“Ooh, exciting stuff. Are you asking me to help you with ideas? I might just tell you what I want to do, you know?”

Sooyoung, excluded from the sudden meeting, looked over from the next table with curious eyes. Jiwoo waved her off dismissively. The vice president has got this covered.

“That’s fine. At this point, any idea would be better than mine.” Jiwoo raised her eyebrows, as if to ask what Jungeun’s idea was. “A study session.”

“No way!” Jiwoo yelled, “you’re such an engineering student.”

“I have exams coming up,” Jungeun complained. “Are you calling me boring?”

“Yes,” Jiwoo teased with a laugh. “Also, you could take us sightseeing. Prove that you aren’t that boring after all.”

On that note, Jungeun sat up abruptly. “I’ve got it!”

* * *

So for the sixth club meeting, Jungeun took them to Kowloon Bay. Jiwoo brought her camera and insisted that they model for her. 

“Nice one, nice one! Now turn around and blow a kiss toward the camera. Great work Haseul!”

“I modelled for the school paper,” she bragged. And then in a voice lower than a whisper, “they made me pose with a pigeon once. It was awful.”

“My turn! Me! Me!” 

Jiwoo approached Jungeun after Sooyoung was finally satisfied with the photos she had. Tugging her trench coat over herself, and with a white beret sitting on her head, Jungeun looked adorable. 

Jiwoo snapped a shot before the moment passed.

Hearing the click and realising what had happened, Jungeun tried to cover her reddened ears, screaming that this wasn’t what she asked for when she planned for them to watch the sunset over the skyline. Jiwoo laughed, taking a few more as Jungeun again tried to run out of frame.

The water and the city stretched on behind them. The breeze blew away the residual afternoon heat. Jungeun’s rosy cheeks matched the colour of the darkening sky. The moment was perfect. 

Jiwoo had pointed the camera back at her. And if Jungeun noticed, which she definitely did, she also most definitely pretended not to.

* * *

“Did you like Kowloon Bay?”

They’ve made a habit of it, walking each other home. What started out as a safety precaution became more like a routine, likely due to the fact that the two enjoyed each other’s company enough to sustain daily conversation. Besides, their blocks were the closest to each other’s out of the four, and it just made a lot of sense. 

“Of course I did, thanks for bringing us there! I love skylines. We should go again one day! I’ll bring my camera, and you could be my model again.”

“You know I don’t do that…” Jungeun cringes. “Model.”

“Bullshit. Anyone can model. Especially someone with a pretty face like you.” Jungeun felt her ears go red, heat rushing to her face at the compliment. Jiwoo, then, reached the realisation that it wasn’t the beret that made Jungeun adorable, it was the other way around, because even without it, she looked cute as hell. 

Perfect timing. “We’re here.”

  
“Huh?” Jungeun looked up, before registering the familiar sign hanging on the door that spelled out “Jiwoo” in pink script. “Oh, that was fast.”

The imminent farewell dragged on longer than expected. It seemed to abrupt of an ending to such a good night. Jungeun had half a mind to just turn and leave, but it seemed like Jiwoo still had something to say. So she waited. 

And waited.

It took a while for her to realise that Jiwoo was leaning in.

Jungeun froze in surprise, feeling the lips barely graze her cheek before pulling away. She wasn’t sure if there was lipstick left behind, but even without a physical trail, Jungeun could feel burning wherever Jiwoo touched her.

“Thank you, for today. You looked really nice. I’ll just...” Jiwoo pointed behind her, looking everywhere but Jungeun. 

“Okay. Um, yeah, you should.” Jungeun added, a little unnecessarily, “It’s uh, late.”

“It is. Goodnight. I’ll…” Jiwoo hesitantly pointed behind her again, to her door.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

The door closed, leaving only inches left. Jungeun only had inches left to change the course of this friendship.

“You looked really pretty, too!” 

She made it, right before the door stopped closing.

Jiwoo peeked behind it, revealing the jittery mess she left at her doorstep. Catching Jungeun’s eye, she smiled. Relaxing a little at the positive reaction, Jungeun smiled back. It took a lot less of a while for Jungeun to realise Jiwoo was leaning in yet again, this time aiming for a different part of her face.

The kiss was short, leaving her wanting more. But that was totally Jiwoo's plan, wasn't it?

“Do you… do you want to come in?”

* * *

“Say you like the club, Jungeun. Say it.”

Jungeun rolled her eyes, memories of the night before flooding back. “I like the club.”

“Yeah, lies!” Haseul caught herself. “Wait. What did you say?”

“Said I hated it. Gotta go, my class starts in five. Bye!”

“Kim Jungeun! You like the club!”

* * *

“Here,” Jiwoo said. She slid a nicely-wrapped box across the table. “A present.”

Anyone could see the suspicion in her eyes. “For me?” Sooyoung asked.

“Yeah! Open it.”

“Okay…” She carefully peeled off tape from one side of the box. “What’s this for?”

“You have to see it to know.”

Jiwoo looked nervous when Sooyoung’s only reaction was widened eyes and a gasp. 

“Jiwoo, this is… this is all Jinsoul’s stuff.”

  
“You have a habit of falling asleep with things in your hands when you’re drunk, right? That ring she gave you - when I found you that thing was pressing into your palm so hard it might have broken skin.”

“Oh,” Sooyoung quietly fiddles around with it.

“And that card, you were crumpling it, so I took it out and ironed it straight. There’s more stuff in there I think you might want back now. I’m sorry I never found a good time to give them back to you. I just thought, you’d like it if they were still in good condition and not have your drunk self defile them.”

Of all the reactions she could have gotten, Jiwoo didn’t expect the one where Sooyoung folded into herself to cry, but that was the one she got, and she wasn’t too sure what to feel about it. She held her friend close, until she heard the muffled ‘thank you’, so cracked and still so broken Jiwoo rescinded every thought about Sooyoung being over Jinsoul. 

“Hey, hey, no more sad, remember?” She pulled her head into her shoulder, stroking her hair carefully until the sobs stopped. “You’re okay. It’s okay.”

* * *

“Hey look, to your 4 o’ clock. Jung Jinsoul. She dyed her hair blonde,” Haseul said. As if on cue, Jinsoul turned to make eye contact with her. “Shit! She saw me. Don’t look.”

Jungeun looked.

Jinsoul was heading straight for them.

“I said don’t look!”

“What, you didn’t even give me any time to react!”

“Excuse me,” the foreign voice shut them both up. They turned to face the owner simultaneously. “I heard you guys were in a club, and I was wondering if I could join?”

The two club members gulped, looking at each other. 

Oh, fucking hell.

* * *

“Haseul, I think we made a mistake. Should we intercept her at the door? Sooyoung doesn’t have to know.”

The club president, at the mention of her name, turned away from the whiteboard momentarily. With her back to them again, Sooyoung continued her crusade to fill up the board with discussion points. Apparently it was time to “consolidate everything they’ve learned in the past month”, or whatever.

Haseul, in response to near-inaudible question, shook her head and glanced at her disapprovingly. No turning back now. Instead of returning to the status quo and pretending everything was fine, like Haseul was doing, Jungeun grabbed Jiwoo’s arm instead, panic evident in her eyes.

“Jiwoo, we fucked up.”

“What did you guys…” Jiwoo seemed to have caught someone by the door. “Oh fuck.” 

The blonde hair was almost as glaring at the sun streaming in through the door. 

“We fucked up,” Jungeun repeated. 

The next moment seemed to happen in slow motion. Sooyoung, having completed her task, dramatically swung her body back to face the club. Her eyes trailed up slowly from the ground, as the silhouette by the door reveals itself to be her ex-girlfriend.

And then, like in the movies, the corner of Jinsoul’s lips tug upwards, revealing the smile everyone and their mothers would have fallen in love with. Sooyoung’s mouth fell open slightly.

“Hi, I’m here for the club meeting?”


	2. this is not a dating show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the club gets into a routine, jiwoo and jungeun get into trouble, and jinsoul runs into an unexpected scene.

They fucked up.

Jiwoo reacts first. Before the marker in Sooyoung’s hand could fall to the floor, she’d already ran to the door, muttered, “Hi, it’s been so a while! Just give us a second, we’ll be right with you,” and got Jungeun and Haseul behind her.

“Who broke the rule.” It comes out more like a warning than a question. Jiwoo feels Jungeun’s grip on her shirt tighten from behind.

“Sooyoung,” Jiwoo said, a hand sticking out, just in case the girl charged. “Calm down, we can ask her to leave if you want.”

“Who was it,” Sooyoung cracks her neck now, and Haseul damn near shudders audibly. Like a dog smelling fear, Sooyoung bares her teeth at the shaken pair. Oh dear god. Jiwoo gulps a little.

“Is that the most important thing right now? Sooyoung, we can- NO!”

Hell breaks loose. Sooyoung does charge, and Jiwoo finds out a hand out as a warning really doesn’t work as well on humans as it does on dogs. Ironic, because with her behaviour, Jiwoo is one bite from Sooyoung away from screaming “Bad Sooyoung! Bad girl! Stay down!”

Jiwoo is easily pushed aside. The next moment Sooyoung already has fistfuls of the two other club members’ poor hair. She’s sneering into their faces, causing them both to squirm and cower in her grasp. There’s only two ways to solve this, and one involves knocking her friend out cold.

“I’m sorry,” Jiwoo mumbles, before turning to the door. And in her loudest voice, “Hey Jinsoul! Come on in.”

Sunlight streams in, and the world stops. 

* * *

Sooyoung is going to kill them all. For Jungeun, she’s preparing a cauldron of soup to throw her into. And Haseul, a cage of birds big enough for her to enter. Since she’s known Jiwoo the longest and the best, she’ll get the best friend privilege. A gun to the head, quick and easy and painless. Jiwoo deserved that, at the very least.

But that wouldn’t be a very good plan. If she killed them all the club would end up consisting of only her and Jinsoul, which would mean the whole string of murders would be counterproductive. In the worst case, she might even get kicked out from The Breakup Club for violating the unspoken club rule to not commit manslaughter, and that’s not even to mention the possible jail time and expulsion from school.

Sitting in suffocating silence, she reckons, isn’t all that bad if the closest alternative to her current scenario involves her going to jail forever.

Jinsoul still sits with her back straight and chin out. Sooyoung thinks of the near-permanent hunch she started wearing after they’d ended things, and realises that in whatever game Jinsoul was here to play, she’d already lost.

“I’m going to go,” Haseul announces suddenly, after five minutes of sitting between her attacker and her attacker’s ex. Her hair is still tousled, like Jungeun’s, a crucial piece of evidence from the violence that happened earlier on. She spares no one else a glance and skitters away, an excuse by her lips that she’s too afraid to even say aloud. So she just leaves, and abandons Jungeun not just physically but emotionally as well, there to fend for herself with only Jiwoo between her and Sooyoung as a human shield. Which Jiwoo, for that matter, had been exceptional at, judging by how she escaped unscathed, and Jungeun got herself pressed into a wall by a madwoman, hair twisted away from her scalp by fiery fists, unable to escape no matter how hard she tried. 

But Jiwoo redeems herself this time. She takes Jungeun hand, unable to suffer in the thick sea of almost-tangible tension any longer, and leads her out with a squeaky, “Bye, we’re going. It was really nice to see you again, Jinsoul.” 

Jungeun looks at her with stars in her eyes spelling out “thank you” in the form of constellations, and yeah, maybe that’s worth all the wrath she’s about to endure from Sooyoung in a bit.

Don’t get her wrong, she’s not just doing this for her new flame; Sooyoung needs to talk to Jinsoul, Jungeun and Haseul have merely expedited the process.

But of course, Sooyoung is still as ready to talk to Jinsoul as she was a month ago, when she promised Jiwoo she’d talk to her but never did. Which means she’s not ready. At all. In fact, she wants to leave.

She stands up to leave. But her feet don’t leave their place on the ground. Her hands ball into fists. She’s shaking, and she doesn’t even know exactly why.

“Are you going to leave?” _ Again? _

“No,” she blurts out, and now to live up to her word, she has to sit back down in the same chair she’s been trying to escape for the past ten minutes. 

“I didn’t mean to hijack the meeting,” Jinsoul mumbles, like she’s sorry. Sooyoung knows her well enough to know she is.

“It’s fine.”

And it’s back to the silence.

She realises she hasn’t looked at Jinsoul yet, not since that split second when she saw her standing at the door, hair strikingly different from when she last saw it, but still similarly, breathtakingly beautiful. 

* * *

“Do you think she’ll be okay in there? I kind of feel bad.” Jungeun pauses. “No wait, I feel bad. Very bad.”

“She never is,” Jiwoo replies. “It’s okay, you know? I know she was dying to see her again anyway.”

“You really know Sooyoung so well.”

“Maybe,” Jiwoo says, and then like she knows something, “not as well I know you. In some areas.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks for that. I didn’t ask.”

“Yeah, I know. I just wanted you to know too.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Jiwoo reaches beside her, and catches Jungeun’s hand in one grab.

“Okay.” Jungeun squeezes her hand.

Jiwoo smiles. “Maybe okay will be our always.” 

“Shut up. You just did the equivalent of leaving your best friend in a burning house.”

Jiwoo shrugs, keys turning her door open with a click. “To be honest, she deserves it. I’ve taken care of her drunk ass more times than I can count on two hands. That’s one hand too many.”

Jungeun watches Jiwoo strut in, the door still open behind her. She smiles to herself, and follows her inside.

* * *

“Why are you here, Jinsoul.”

“To join the club.”

Sooyoung can’t help the disappointment that arises. “Really?”

“You were my entire social circle here. I can’t just go on without friends. We still have three months here and I… I was thinking we could…” Jinsoul goes quiet, and Sooyoung feels like she knows what she’s going to say. She’s telling the truth, that’s for sure (Jinsoul’s not the type to lie, rather the kind to hurt your feelings in the name of truth), and maybe Sooyoung wants to prolong this moment a little more, this moment before Jinsoul says exactly what’s on her mind, and exactly what she hates to hear.

“Don’t say it.” It’s blurted out like a clumsy confession. She hates how it mirrors the first time she told Jinsoul she loved her.

“What?”

“Don’t say what you were going to say.”

“Sooyoung,” Jinsoul huffs, “you’re so… ugh!”

They sit in silence again, chairs now pointed away from each other. Jinsoul has her arms crossed while Sooyoung has both elbows on the table, and her head in her hands. 

After a long while, Sooyoung lifts her head. “I can’t do it. Be friends with you. I can’t.”

“You don’t get to say that.”

“Seeing you is…” Sooyoung stops herself. “I can’t.”

“You don’t want to be with me. You don’t want to be my friend. It’s always about you! Do I not get a say in whether I want you in my life or not?”

An accusatory finger jabs into her chest, the guilt and shame like oxygen seeping out of her lungs, choking her, suffocating her.

“You don’t get to dictate what I do. You’re not the only one hurting, and you sure as hell are not the only one who can’t move on.”

Tears cloud her vision. She doesn’t have to look to know Jinsoul is crying too. Carefully, she places her hand over the one stabbing at her heart. It goes slack, and fits right in her palm.

The apologies spill out of her lips, and by the time their eyes have dried, Jinsoul isn’t just a newly inaugurated friend in Sooyoung’s exclusive little circle, she’s also a member of The Breakup Club.

* * *

“So can you?” 

This being the first thing Jiwoo asks after Sooyoung chews her out for leaving her behind, alone, defenseless against the ticking time bomb that was - not her ex but - her feelings towards her ex kind of catches her off guard. She’d expected Jiwoo to take a more defensive stance, like: “I needed to go to the toilet!” or whatever, but here Jiwoo is, so eager to move on. 

She’d always admired that part of her. She wishes she could move on as quickly as her friend did.

Anyways. She leans back on her chair, carefully observing Jiwoo who’s taking up the entirety of her bed. 

“Can I what?”

“Do friends.”

“I can do my friends.” There’s a thoughtful pause as Sooyoung contemplates the weight of what she just said. “Not you though.”

Jiwoo rolls her eyes and groans, hyper-aware of the bed she’s lying in now. She throws a soft toy at Sooyoung when she laughs. “Can you be friends with Jinsoul? Yes or no.”

She shrugs. “I dunno. Schrodinger’s cat.”

Jiwoo stares at her. It’s like Sooyoung has actually gone mad after months of pretending to. Maybe she finally did it. “What the hell does that mean?”

“So this scientist called Erwin Schrodinger devises a hypothetical experiment in the 1930s. He would put this imaginary cat in an imaginary box with a sealed vial of poison that would break off at a random time. And since no one knows when or if the poison is released, unless someone opens the box, the cat can be thought of as dead or alive.”

A beat.

And now, more incredulously, “What the hell does that mean?”

“Right now, my potential friendship with Jinsoul can be thought of as both good and bad. And unless I open the box, I’ll never know which it is.”

“And you’re really doing it. You’re opening the box.” There’s a hint of something unfamiliar in Jiwoo’s voice. Surprise? Disbelief? Something positive for once? Sooyoung can’t tell. The corner of Jiwoo’s lips tug upwards slowly, and she gets her answer. “I’m so proud of you!”

_ Friends. I can do friends. _

She thinks of Jinsoul laughing, smiling, talking (slowly, like she’s speaking in a foreign language when she isn’t), and the butterflies that used to be so persistently there aren’t making their way up her throat anymore. They’re idle maybe, or dead, and Sooyoung thoroughly enjoys their absence.

Maybe, she can _ actually _ can do friends. It’s time she had a little more faith in herself. The box of stuff Jiwoo passed her that day sits unpacked on her desk, ready to be reopened and reviewed again, hopefully with less tears this time around. She smiles to Jiwoo at that thought, but it seems her friend is preoccupied with something else.

Talk about moving on fast.

“I have to go.” Jiwoo gets up to her feet, smoothing out her dress. “Got a date.”

Woah. Too fast!

“Huh? In… that?” Sooyoung exclaims, pointing at the odd yellow dress Jiwoo has on. 

“It’s coming off anyways,” Jiwoo states with a casual shrug, then winks at her. The gesture both unnerves Sooyoung and makes her uncomfortable. “Bye!”

She tries not to dwell on the fact that her best friend has ditched her yet again, defenseless, but now alone against her very noisy thought chamber. Maybe what she needs is someone interesting enough to be a distraction, gay, and wasn’t Jinsoul.

The line engages smoothly. Haseul picks up after three rings.

* * *

For the first time since they’ve started this arrangement, Jungeun feels uncomfortable in Jiwoo’s presence.

No, it’s not the way Jiwoo’s naked, feverish skin is pressed against her. Definitely not the random thoughts of her friends and family finding out little ‘straight’ her has been sleeping with a girl. Also not the fact that they have “Disobedience” on, by Jiwoo’s recommendation, and it’s literally the epitome of the secret lesbian affair trope.

Okay, maybe it’s all of those things, _ and _ one more.

“Rachel Weisz is hot.”

Jungeun gulps, nods her head, pretends Jiwoo didn’t just spell out what was exactly on her mind. It gets a little more suffocating when the two female leads start kissing, and Jungeun doesn’t think she has ever felt this faint in her life, not since the first time Jiwoo herself kissed her.

And then Rachel Weisz spits in Rachel McAdams mouth. That’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. She sits up, presses pause on the movie before it can go any further, and puts her back to Jiwoo and her head in her hands.

It seems kind of stupid to be overthinking her newfound attraction to women, especially after literally just sleeping with one, but unlike Jiwoo she’s only been with men her whole life. Cut her some slack.

“What’s wrong?” Jiwoo asks, and Jungeun wants to berate herself for mentally equating that to a warm blanket on a cold day, because now she’s leaning back into the other girl’s embrace and sighing loudly.

“I’m scared,” she says, and it’s a little ridiculous since on-screen Rachel Weisz is still hovering over other Rachel’s body with saliva dangling from her mouth and it sounds like Jungeun is scared of being spit on, so Jiwoo says:

“I would never do that to you.”

“No!” Jungeun protests, “not that! Fuck, I mean don’t do that to me anyways but. This is something else entirely different from what I know.”

Jiwoo laughs softly, but not in the way which indicates she finds her absurd for thinking that way. “You and I?”

“You and I. Girls and I. And I know we’ve done this a few times now but it’s still new. Still scary.”

It’s almost like in those movies the film aficionado shuns away from and Jungeun loves - the silly romcoms with their over-the-top romantic gestures and cliche lines. They look tenderly into each other’s eyes for a moment, before Jiwoo clambers into her lap, wraps a hand around her chin, brings her lips up and back to where they were enjoying themselves a moment earlier.

“You don’t have to be scared,” Jiwoo tells her between gasps, “I won’t spit on you.” Jungeun whines, breaks off the kiss to pout a little. Jiwoo leans back in. “I won’t hurt you. Not like he did. I won’t.”

That’s as good a promise it gets. Jungeun nods, pulls Jiwoo back down with her, and that’s the end of that.

* * *

“Do you want to have sex with me?”

Haseul looks at her like she’s mad. Reels back like the question has literally just hit her in the face. Waves her hands around like she doesn’t know what to do with them. Stammers out a scandalised “WHA- WHA- WHAT?!” like it’s the first time she’s ever heard of that.

“Do you want to have sex with me? Be honest.”

“NO!”

“Aw come on!” Sooyoung whines now. “Why not? Jiwoo and whoever the hell this mysterious person she’s been seeing is are having the time of their lives together right now.”

“Well unlike her neither of us are quite over our exes.”

“Which is why this is the perfect solution.”

Haseul gives it a thought. “Okay fine,” she says, sprawling out on the bed, “it’s not going to work, but do your best.”

Sooyoung climbs on top of Haseul, suddenly aware of where her hands are and where they should be. She gingerly places one on top of Haseul’s left breast, and squeezes it gently. Not knowing what else to do - this isn’t the body she’s familiar with, that one is a little taller and leaner and blonder, _ but whatever _\- she leans forward to lick a stripe up Haseul’s earlobe.

“Mmm you like that?”

Haseul squirms. “Not really.”

Nevermind. Sooyoung’s got more game than that. She leans back on her knees, still straddling the smaller girl. Okay. She’s still on top, still in her element. She lets a suggestive finger trace Haseul’s jaw, down her neck, onto her sternum. Slowly, seductively. 

Haseul shudders - not the good kind - and she wavers, just a little. But she has no time to dwell on Haseul’s enjoyment or lack thereof, not yet. The moment Haseul told her she wasn’t really feeling it, she made it a game, and now all Sooyoung can think about is winning. 

So she rips Haseul’s shirt, from the first button to the last, full expecting a moan or a gasp or anything and everything that wasn’t, “What the fuck! Ha Sooyoung!”

“Yes babe?”

“Don’t call me babe. Also get the fuck off me. Now. That was my favourite shirt.”

It takes a beat before Sooyoung recoils, sitting up and plopping next to Haseul in defeat. 

“Man, fuck you! So fucking hard to please.”

“I told you it wouldn’t work, stupid. Now give me a clean shirt. Since you fucking ripped mine off.”

“Was that not sexy?” 

“Absolutely not!”

Sooyoung groans, but throws her a cotton tee from the drawers anyway, thoughtlessly replying, “You know, Jinsoul used to liked that. That’s why she always had shirts over at mine.”

“I am not Jinsoul.” 

Sooyoung hums a tune that is neither happy nor sad, just _ there _, and Haseul questions her with raised eyebrows. 

“Yeah, you aren’t,” Sooyoung pouts, “can we still cuddle though? Kinda need it.”

“Sure,” Haseul laughs. “Please at least do it right. I can’t lose another garment.”

In reply, Sooyoung sinks into open arms, tries to let the images of freshly-dyed blonde hair slip away from her mind, and fails. 

After a few minutes of sticky skin and uncomfortable heat, Haseul asks the ever-important question, “Should we get a drink instead?” and Sooyoung doesn’t think she’s ever jumped that fast at an opportunity.

* * *

Jinsoul hasn’t really had life cut out for her.

What she means is that she has terrible timing, a serious lack of luck, and perhaps a culmination of the first two things that cause her to fall in love with the wrong people, at the wrong stages in life, for the wrong reasons.

She thought Sooyoung would be different.

She hoped Sooyoung would be different. Or ‘hopes’, really, because she finds herself looking longingly - yes, _ longingly _ \- at Sooyoung’s empty seat in the one class they share and feels not relief this time but utter disappointment. Asking her to be friends wasn’t the brightest idea she could have come up with, but what can she say. She missed her.

But perhaps another reason to explain the endless misery life has been putting her through is this: even when she tries her best, nothing goes right. Like when she brought Sooyoung to her favourite restaurant in all of Seoul only to find out she had a seafood allergy. Or when she decided that going on an exchange programme with the girl she was going to marry was a good idea, only to get broken up with. Or in a few seconds, when she has Sooyoung’s favourite Tai Cheong Bakery egg tarts in her hand, about to knock on her door, only to have the door open to see...

Sooyoung - hair up in pigtails, clearly hungover, looking back at her with a face full of shock - behind it.

And behind her, Haseul. She knows Sooyoung well enough to know she has the face of someone who has just gotten caught. “It’s not what it looks like,” she looks like she wants to say, and Jinsoul wonders why the hell she’s waiting for an explanation and Sooyoung looks so eager to offer one when they’ve already broken up.

“Uh, here. Breakfast. You didn’t go to class.” She adds, like an afterthought, “Nice shirt, Haseul.”

Haseul looks down at the shirt she's wearing. "CUNNING LINGUIST" it says in bright red print, and then in small print below, "SNU Department of Linguistics".

When Jinsoul leaves, she makes sure it’s with a sway of her hips and a bounce in her ponytail. On the inside, she wants to cry and curl up and curse the universe for failing her yet again.

So she’s still madly in love with her ex. What now?

* * *

Life, as weirdly as it does, goes on.

Sooyoung turns up drunk to meetings once in a while. Jinsoul keeps her distance. Haseul tries to befriend her anyway and convince her that Sooyoung and her did not in fact sleep together, to which Jinsoul always smiles and says, “It doesn’t matter. We’ve broken up. Jiwoo takes more photos of a now more willing participant in Jungeun, and Jungeun contemplates the nature of her relationship/friendship/gray area with Jiwoo.

Club meetings become routine. Sooyoung removes the second rule from their list of rules. They visit more tourist traps, learn new hobbies, watch more movies.

And this routine, strangely as it did, went on. Until one day, _ it _finally happened.

The ‘it’ two of the club members haven’t actively avoided but actively omitted from their daily conversations. The ‘it’ that they’ve actually talked about but glossed over with too little hesitance.

(Exhibit A:

“Should we tell them?”

“Who?”

Jungeun hit Jiwoo on the arm for feigning ignorance. “You know who. The club.”

“About us? Nah.” 

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Jungeun shrugged, picking up where she left off on a story about her first date with Yisup.)

The ‘it’ happens when Sooyoung, Jinsoul and Haseul find out anyway.

“Hey,” Haseul says, hearing the line get through almost immediately, “are we meeting today? Only Jinsoul and I are here, and I haven’t been able to get hold of Jungeun or Jiwoo.”

“Oh, they told me they were sick when you were still in class.” Soooyoung imagines Haseul frowning over the phone. “Hey actually, you wanna bring them some food? I don’t think either of them have had dinner.”

“Sure. I’ll pick some stuff up. We’ll meet you at Jiwoo’s?” 

Bingo.

* * *

“Sooyoung, for the love of god, was there a NEED to bring us back here?!” 

A buzzing moth makes its presence known by flying right into the tungsten lightbulb. Jiwoo screams in shock. 

“Yes. We’re extremely disappointed in you two.”

The lightbulb flickered between them. Jiwoo and Jungeun, ashamed, hang their heads. Seated across the rectangular table was Sooyoung, with a pair of daggers for eyes, and Haseul with her head in her hands. Jinsoul, fairly neutral, stands to the side with her arms crossed but an amused expression on her face. The stale air of the music room surrounds them. It seems like ages ago that they had their first meeting here.

Sooyoung shut her eyes. “I, for one, cannot believe the audacity you two had to go behind our backs to have your own fun, in the name of The Breakup Club!”

“What the fuck, you guys?” Haseul supplements.

“What happened to loyalty? Integrity?” Sooyoung stared Jiwoo in the eye for the next one. “Best friendship?”

Jiwoo raised a hand. “May I speak in my defense?”

“No,” the two parroted back. 

“Shame on you,” Sooyoung added.

“And shame on you,” Haseul directed at Jungeun.

“We didn’t break any club rules! And to be fair, ever since we started… doing the do, you know… I’ve thought about Yisup less. Wasn’t that what this whole club was started for? ‘No more sad’? I’m not as sad anymore. And I don’t care what you guys have to say about me doing what makes me happy.”

“Aw,” Jiwoo cooed, “doing me makes you happy?”

“Ew!”

Heat flushes to her cheeks. Her body agrees even before her brain does. “Shut up, you’re de-legitimising my case.”

“Your Honour, I retract my previous statement. I meant to say that yes, I too am not as sad anymore. Please take that with a bucket of salt or whatever the opposite of a pinch is…”

Haseul made eye contact with Sooyoung, who turned to look Jinsoul in the eye. They turned around, quickly discussing their stand. 

“We have our verdict,” Sooyoung finally announced. “For fucking behind our backs we sentence you two to planning the rest of the club meetings for the year.” Jiwoo and Jungeun throw their hands up, likely protesting the judge’s sentence. A little harsh, considering they had two whole months left to plan. But Sooyoung wasn’t done. 

“And if the accused would like to keep fucking, we would allow it on one condition.”

“What is it?” Jiwoo asked with a frown.

“Tickets to Disneyland.” Sounds of protest. “For the whole club.” More sounds of protest. “This court is adjourned! Bye!”

The three older club members run out of the room, leaving behind a string of laughter and two very indignant girls behind. 

“Well,” Jiwoo says with a laugh, “that could have gone worse.”

“Debatable,” Jungeun replies, with a scrunch of her nose and a look of disapproval. She's thinking of how they got caught - her on top of Jiwoo (a first), giggly and nervous until the door burst open and three people stumbled in. They laugh again.

Jiwoo takes her hand, but properly holds it for the first time ever, interlocking their fingers and everything. 

  
_ Yeah_, she smiles into the kiss, _ it definitely could have gone worse_.


	3. murphy's law

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anything that can go wrong, will go wrong

It’s the 31st of October, the night before the long-awaited trip to Disneyland. Young trick or treaters are on their way home with their chaperones. Students of the University of Hong Kong are mostly balled up in their rooms, too old and tired from the festivities. Upon the door hangs Haseul’s costume - 24 packets of Smarties pasted onto her favourite pair of jeans (she went as Smartie Pants, depositing chocolate into the awaiting mouths of candy-deprived twenty-something year old partygoers). The moonlight dimly illuminates the offensive pair of pants.

In the distance, an owl hoots ominously. 

It’s  15°C  outside but Haseul’s sweating profusely, skin sticking to the sheets. Tossing and turning, she doesn’t seem to be having a restful night. An incredibly bad feeling crawls up her body. And even in her subconscious she knows it’s not the piercing blue eyes on her Megan Fox poster that’s causing the discomfort this time. 

The nearby church mistakenly rings its bell. She sits up abruptly, jolted from her sleep. 

“Something’s wrong.”

* * *

“Oh my god, you look so much tanner. Honestly I don’t know what you were thinking when you took a month off from school to travel but - god, why am I even saying all this. I missed you, baby.”

Vivi laughs at her rambling, teary mother, and wonders how she managed to age so much within a month. She really should have called back more often. “Missed you too, Mom.”

“When are you going back to school?”

“Later in the afternoon, actually. I need to get some stuff settled.” Vivi pauses, her sixth sense tingling. She turns around before her six feet tall giant of a brother can scare her, and gets him in a chokehold which he valiantly but unsuccessfully tries to get out of.

“Ah! Stop, stop, stop! This is no way to treat your brother after a month abroad-”

“I heard you’ve been coming home late. Clubbing? Skipping family dinners? You ought to be smacked-”

“Okay! Okay, in my defense I was pushed by my friends into doing those things. You know how university kids are…” Lucas has his hands up, and his puppy eyes in full effect. Vivi lets him go. “Won’t do it again.”

“You better not.” Vivi finally smiles widely up at him, and embraces the snapback-wearing bro-dude of a younger brother she has and loves. “Missed you,  _ sai lou. _ ”

“Missed you too, _ ze. _ So,” he whispers cheekily, putting his arm around her shoulder. “Tell me everything about Europe.”

* * *

Between the ticket office and the grand entrance, Jungeun has only one thought. Disneyland is such a scam. They steal the money from hardworking parents for a day of manufactured fun and simulated danger for children. It’s a scam that has taken out half of her budget for the month, but then again, it’s not really Disneyland’s fault that she has to pay for Sooyoung and Haseul (and let Jiwoo pay for Jinsoul only, you know, because she’s  _ chivalrous _ ).

Jiwoo seems unfazed, like she always is with things. She flashes her empty wallet to Jungeun with a cheeky smile. “Hey look, I only have 69 cents left. You know what that means…”

“Jiwoo,” Jungeun cries, “we don’t have enough money for chicken nuggets.”

“Aw baby, it’s okay,” Jiwoo coos, “I’ve always like chicken fingers better anyway.” Before Jungeun can whine again in reply, Jiwoo is already dragging her along with the arm around her waist. The group is waiting for them by the gantry, facing three different directions. 

So that still needs some work. 

Another problem arises before the last one can even be addressed. Jungeun’s holding on to three tickets, Jiwoo has already kept a Minnie ticket for herself and given the Daisy one to Jinsoul. And so of course now she has to take the Mickey one, which leaves Donald and Goofy up for grabs. Sooyoung and Haseul look at her weirdly, sticking out their hands impatiently.

Sooyoung snaps first, “Hey loser, pass the tickets.”

She hesitantly presents the two tickets in question, and they’re snatched up before she can even think twice about what she’s just done.

Jiwoo takes a peek, and then in Jiwoo fashion, yells excitedly, “Aw look, we’re Mickey and Minnie! That’s so cute.” 

That prompts her for the worst. Sooyoung and Jinsoul stare at their tickets, and then each other. They’re Donald and Daisy. Oh god, this trip was doomed for failure the moment she didn’t specify that she just wanted plain tickets and not the ones decorated with characters. 

Sooyoung heads for the gantry first, jaw clenched and ears hot, leaving them behind to catch up to her. Jinsoul can only clear her throat and let out half-hearted laughs when Haseul recites “oh pick me, I’m so Goofy” like it’s her new mantra.

* * *

Everybody loves the carousel.

Everybody except Sooyoung, that is, because she’s the only one with a frown instead of a smile plastered on her face. Carousels suck. They’re slow and they’re awfully childish, and remind her too much of horses and carriages and that one time she fell off a horse carriage sometime in her childhood and broke an arm.

She’s mad at carousels, but the anger doesn’t end there. She’s mad at her best friend - her  _ best _ friend! - for pulling Jungeun into one of those couple seats and clinging to her the whole time. She’s mad at Jungeun for letting her. She’s mad at Jinsoul for still thinking she and Haseul slept together and making things awkward, and mad at Haseul for not being able to convince Jinsoul otherwise. 

And finally, she’s mad at herself for overthinking when they’re at Disneyland, of all places. It’s supposed to be the happiest place on earth, and yet here she is, miserable.

Some kid approaches her as they’re waiting for the carousel to start again (Jiwoo insisted on staying for another round), hesitantly looking her up and down before opening his mouth to softly ask in Cantonese, “May I have this horse please?”

He looks about five, and Sooyoung blinks at him twice, not really understanding anything because of the language and because the young boy talks like he has cotton balls in his mouth. She figures it out with the way he looks longingly into the eyes of the porcelain horse, and she quickly removes herself off it. “Go ahead,” she tries with a smile.

The boy grins back, a silly one, giggling as he hoists himself up with a bit of a struggle. Sooyoung’s right there to catch him when he loses his balance and almost falls, and she seats him properly, with the seatbelt and everything.

Jinsoul, from behind, watches the whole thing with a smile as easy as the boy’s. It disappears off her face as swiftly as Sooyoung turns to see if there are other empty seats, but not quickly enough to avoid her eyes. She awkwardly shifts around in her place, desperately trying to hide the fact that she’s still as soft-hearted for Sooyoung as the day they’d met.

(And blame her luck again, that the only empty seat left is the one in the miniature pony beside hers.) 

When Jinsoul has the guts to look anywhere but the floor again, Sooyoung has her overgrown body draped over the tiny seat, more standing than she is sitting. Jinsoul can’t help but guffaw.

“Looking good, Donald.”

Sooyoung freezes. “Shut up,” she finally lets out, embarrassed. Daisy -  _ Jinsoul  _ \- laughs, and everything from the whole being friends thing to the whole being awkward thing goes out the window, and Sooyoung’s left wondering if there’s any version of the cartoon where Donald isn’t crazy about Daisy.

* * *

People always assume Haseul to be some kind of god. She is the mom friend, the class clown, the designated driver, the lucky girl who dated model and school belle Vivi Wong. The almighty Haseul. Haseul’s very much a multi-tasker and an overachiever. She’s all of those things and then some. 

But right now, she’s just someone with a pit full of dread in her stomach and a spinning head. 

“Jiwoo, that teacup ride was awful,” Jinsoul dry heaves into the bag again. “It’s your favourite?!” Jiwoo nods, completely unaffected. At least Haseul’s not the only one suffering; Jungeun looks as pale as the ghost costume she had on the day before, and that was literally a piece of white cloth draped over her head. Sooyoung’s off to buy water - probably too affected by the amount of nausea-inducing sounds (just three people dry-heaving into the same bag, no big deal) going around. 

Jiwoo snaps a commemorative photo of their ordeal. “For archival purposes,” she says to the three bent over figures, “you know, just vice-president duties.” 

Maybe this was what the bad feeling she had last night was about. Her body warning her that an army of giant teacups were going to twirl her into her eventual doom, and right now death seemed a better option than the alternative, which was to stand up straight and continue their unspoken quest to ride every ride possible. 

But then again, the latter wouldn’t be that much more a explorable option either. Jiwoo and Jungeun have been so gross Haseul wished she was blind. Jinsoul and Sooyoung have bucketloads of history and too much tension for them three to ever walk alongside each other without Haseul feeling like she’s suffocating. This whole day has been a mess and a half, and as much as she relishes Disneyland and the nostalgia it brings, she has way too much on her mind to be properly enjoying it. Of course she can’t say it aloud, and the club members probably don’t know either, with the way she’s been cracking jokes all day. 

Her less than ideal GPA. Her sick grandmother back at home. Vivi. The whole misunderstanding with Jinsoul. The essay she hasn’t started but has to finish in two days. She should actually be spending her Saturday on that and not Disneyland, really. Will her professor notice that her knowledge of Mozart doesn’t go beyond “Amadeus”, that film Jiwoo made them watch? Why does it have to be 40% of her entire grade? Is Vivi back from Europe? How is she? Did she find herself someone who was willing to stay in Hong Kong with her? What would Vivi think of her joining a heartbreak club? Does Vivi still like her? Grandma is sick! 

The bad feeling doesn’t go away. She sits out the next ride (Space Mountain), just in case. 

* * *

“Jiwoo, wait!”

“Oh come on don’t worry Jungeun! I’m sure Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars doesn’t actually have big grizzly bears or mountains or is actually in a mine-”

“No, Jiwoo-”

Jiwoo interrupts, “Do I have to use my bedroom voice? Fine. Who’s a good girl? Who’s-”

“Jiwoo!” yells Jungeun, embarrassed. “We lost our friends!”

“What?!” Jiwoo gasps, veering in ten different directions. Her friends are nowhere to be found. They had, somehow, managed to lose three grown adults. “You could have told me that sooner!”

“You weren’t listening!”

Jiwoo looks around for exactly ten more seconds, furrowing her eyebrows and letting her mind whirl between exasperated sighs. 

“You know what,” says Jiwoo with a resigned voice and a strange twinkle in her eye. “Maybe…”

“Maybe what?” Jungeun’s close to a breakdown, hands on her head and everything. “Could they be in the washroom? I remember Sooyoung saying she needed it. Wait, what were you saying?”

“Maybe,” whispers Jiwoo, “maybe we should just ditch them.”

“No,” Jungeun says, shaking her head like she doesn’t believe herself. “No? No…”

“Come on! They obviously aren’t enjoying themselves, even though they were the ones who suggested we come here,” says Jiwoo with a pout. She leans into Jungeun’s body. “Let’s just have our own fun and then tell them we were looking for them the whole time.”

That’s all it takes for Jungeun to waver. 

“Jungeun.” It’s just one word, but Jiwoo is convincing when she wants to be. Seductive when she tries. Beautiful without even trying. A stunning reminder of how horrible of a boyfriend Yisup actually was. And Jungeun is not one to say no to her, when she’s all of those things at once. 

* * *

Murphy’s Law states, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Right now, Haseul could care less about Murphy and his terribly accurate predictions. 

The day has just upgraded from being a mess and a half, to two messes and three quarters. Maybe even three messes. Haseul’s just being generous.

“You don’t care at all what I think, do you! To you, I’m not even a friend!” yells Jinsoul.

“You are my friend!” refutes Sooyoung. “I’m trying so hard to be your friend. But look at what you’re accusing me of.”

Haseul doesn’t know how this shouting match began, but she’s not curious at all to know how it ends. She just wants to escape it, pronto.

“It’s not an accusation. You slept with her. And I don’t care!” 

“Oh, come on you obviously care. You’ve been mad about it since the day you caught us in the same room. Guess what, you’re still mad over something that didn’t happen! We didn’t sleep together. Probably never will.”

And that’s Haseul’s cue to leave. She’s already overstayed her welcome in the conversation for 5 minutes too long, because Jinsoul has-

“You don’t have to tell me all that because I don’t care! We’re not together you can do whatever you want-”

Nevermind. Haseul stalks away with her wallet and phone still in Jinsoul’s tightly clenched fists. 

“Then why are you MAD??” 

“Because you slept with her!” Jinsoul yells. Luckily for her, Haseul’s already halfway up the queue to Space Mountain, the ride she never got to take.

Sooyoung, indignant, screams back, “I didn’t!” 

Jinsoul is shaking from her elbows down to her knees. A moment of silence. Sooyoung takes it to mourn the death of her sanity. 

“I didn’t,” she states again, calmly. “I’m only saying this one more time. I didn’t sleep with Haseul. I don’t like her that way, and she’s still not over her ex.”

“I…” Jinsoul starts, face so tightly scrunched up that Sooyoung makes the mistake of expecting a heartfelt apology.

The moment “I don’t believe you” leaves Jinsoul’s mouth, Sooyoung sighs, turns, and storms off.

* * *

By the time Haseul completes her fifth consecutive round of Space Mountain, the sky has already been painted all types of grey and orange. She decides to retire from screaming her frustration out on a ride in pitch darkness, where she’s strapped down next to a person whom she’s never met and is definitely judging her for all of that. Without her phone, or even a dollar to her name, she decides the most logical course of action would be to sit by the carousel and hope Jiwoo drags Jungeun back there for one last joyride. 

Mindlessly watching the bright lights go round and round wasn’t so bad - until the cold started to bite, that is. The sun has fully disappeared by now, and with it goes the last of her sunny disposition. Haseul shivers slightly in the wind, crossing her arms even tighter in a futile attempt to keep warm. 

Hypothermia is probably going to pay her a visit before her friends do. Oh no, the lights are blurring, the fairytale music is slowing down, that statue of Cinderella is moving closer and closer, she’s going, she’s going...

“Hey, you alright?” Cinderella stops right in front of her, and asks.

She’s gone. This is how it ends.  _ Lonely college student dies of hypothermia after lonely day of being alone at Disneyland.  _

Cinderella shakes her by the shoulders. “Haseul, hey, it’s me.”

Haseul registers the warm hands, then the accented Korean, and finally the red hair and denim jacket that Cinderella should not be donning. She jolts awake, and blinks twice, thrice, just to be sure.

“What- How- You’re supposed to be in Europe. What are you doing here?”

“I came back,” says Vivi, taking off her jacket and placing it over Haseul’s shoulders. “And the first thing I did was to look for you. Then I heard you joined a heartbreak club, and that you guys were here. So, I tried my luck.”

Haseul, admittedly, doesn’t know what she’s supposed to feel in response to that. 

“Thank you. It’s not a heartbreak club, it’s a breakup club,” she mumbles, pulling the jacket over herself. “You could have just called, you know, instead of coming all the way here. Or waited back on campus.”

There’s a pause before the answer. “There are lots of things I could have done, Haseul. I could have stayed in that quaint little town in Catalonia, could have chosen to have gone somewhere other than SNU in the summer, could have had someone else be my student advisor, could have waited another day to see you. But this is what I did, and so you have to live with the consequences.”

Vivi, admittedly, is pretty well-versed in the art of romance. And Haseul no longer struggles to realise she’s being  _ romanced _ . By Vivi. Again.

“You are kind of ridiculous,” Haseul tells her, laughing a little. 

“And I am also kind of hoping that works in my favour. I ran out of cash on my way here so I don’t have a ride back home.”

“Charming,” tuts Haseul. “My wallet isn’t with me. Could you give Jungeun a call?”

“I could,” she replies. “But maybe later.”

Before Haseul can move to ask why, Vivi lays her head on her denim-clad shoulder, and shifts her body just an eighth of an inch closer to her. She hears a boisterous voice in the distance, one that she recognises as belonging to the person she’s supposed to be looking for.

Instead, Haseul closes her eyes, and feels the stress drain out of her.

Nothing’s wrong. Not for now, anyway.

* * *

Jungeun struggles to wrap her mind around a lot of things. 

Last week, her newfound bisexuality. Yesterday, something her professor said in class. Earlier today, how Jiwoo never seems to be running low on energy. And right now, how Sooyoung managed to change her entire outfit from when she last saw her.

Not even the ferris wheel scared her that much, though to be fair, Jiwoo had employed several methods of distraction that proved more effective than either of them expected. Sooyoung has ditched her favourite crop top, leather jacket, jeans and sneakers combo for a bright red, one-piece suit and thigh-high boots she apparently keeps in her bag at all times. Chains decorate the body of the suit, and her face is painted red by the harsh light emitted from the nearby diner with a haunted theme. She’s sitting by the curb with her legs propped up, jaw clenched and looking murderous even in such a defenseless position.

All that, and Jungeun hasn’t even begun to figure out what the hell Jiwoo meant by, “That’s not Sooyoung, that’s  _ Yves _ .”

When prompted for a further explanation, Jiwoo had simply said, “Whenever she and Jinsoul fought, she would wear that one-piece and call herself Yves, no matter the weather. It’s her coping mechanism. They once fought in the middle of winter. Five inches of snow. She had that outfit and those boots on, but that story is for me to know and her right knee to remember.”

Jungeun winces. “And how does she get out of this… phase?”

“Interpretive dance. Oh look, she’s starting her routine!” 

Sure enough, Jungeun hears a vaguely sexy tune she recognises. Nodding as Sooyoung begins flapping her arms to the introductory beat, she mutters, “Tinashe’s Superlove.”

“What?" Jiwoo shoots her a look like she's crazy. "No! DIA’s WooWoo. Thought the red outfit was a dead giveaway.”

Safe to say Jungeun’s still struggling to wrap her mind around a lot of things. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaand surprise! vivi's here. 
> 
> and yes, to answer your burning question, Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars is an actual ride that exists. 
> 
> p.s. sorry for late updates. let's pretend we're still in october. happy halloween everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me!  
twt: @2jinverse


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